May 20
International Film Forum: HANA HANME
HANA HANME: LIVES OF ELDERLY KOREAN WOMEN IN JAPAN (Kim Sung-woong, Japan, 2004, 100 min.)
Introduced by David O'Dea (Chemistry major and Japanese minor, class of 2019)
Skype Q+A with the director will follow the screening
After the death of his mother, Kim Sung-woong decided to portray the everyday life and history of first-generation zainichi ['Japan resident'] Koreans. He spent four years documenting the lives of old women living in small apartments in the neighborhood of Sakuramoto in Kawasaki City. In his fliers, Kim writes, “What I could do was to make a film with my friends, as if we were making a small tomb.” Unlike many works on zainichi Koreans that depict the history of their struggles and discrimination, this work is refreshing because it captures the everyday lives of first-generation zainichi Koreans as they are now.